Posts by Connecticut SPJ

Join Keene State College journalism professors Mark Timney and Chad Nye, as well as gun safety and training experts from Greyson Guns in Orange, Conn. for a half-day training session on reporting about gun issues.

Journalists who attend will learn how to avoid mistakes that are regularly made when it comes to coverage of assault-style weapons, high capacity magazines and gun show/online loopholes. They will also have the opportunity to see and handle different style firearms during the workshop. Trainers from Greyson Guns will give details about Connecticut specific gun sale and permit laws.

Connecticut SPJ is hosting this event to help provide information to editors and reporters who may need to report on issues involving guns on a deadline.

There are 12 seats available for the training, which will include free lunch. Reservations are limited to one per news outlet. If seats remain available on Aug. 15, tickets will become available to a second representative from news outlets, on a first-come basis.

The Connecticut Pro Chapter of SPJ will again offer travel grants to CTSPJ members and students who want to travel to the national SPJ convention in New Orleans this September.

Professional members of CTSPJ are eligible for $1,100 toward conference expenses, and student members of SPJ in Connecticut are eligible for $500.

The grants are paid as reimbursements, with proof of receipt.

To apply for a grant, write 500 words or less about why you want to attend the conference.

The Excellence in Journalism Conference is hosted by SPJ, Native American Journalists Association and the Radio Television Digital News Association. It will run from Sept. 18 – 20 in New Orleans, La. View the conference website for more details.

Send the short essay, along with your SPJ member number, to Cindy Simoneau, a past president of the CTSPJ board, at CLSimoneau@aol.com. Simoneau will prepare all applications for a blind review by the CTSPJ board members.

The winners must be members of CTSPJ or a student chapter in Connecticut in good standing. New members are welcome to apply. To confirm membership status, contact Linda Hall at LindaH@SPJ.org or 317-927-8000 ext. 203.

CTSPJ updated its contest circulation and categories this year. The Board of Directors would like feedback from those who entered the contest as we review and discuss the changes at our summer board meeting.

Please fill out this survey with any feedback from your experience with the contest this year, before June 25.

The Bob Eddy Scholarship Foundation awarded $6,000 in scholarship to four deserving students at the Excellence in Journalism Awards banquet May 26.

To qualify for a scholarship, students must start their junior or senior year in Fall 2016 and be enrolled at an accredited university in Connecticut, or be a Connecticut resident enrolled in an accredited university in any state or country. The scholarship committee looks at past journalism work, commitment to the industry, academic success and financial need when determining winners of the scholarships each year.

The Bob Eddy Scholarship Foundation is managed through the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. To donate to the scholarship fund, please click here.

Sophie Jane Ota (Bob Eddy Award — $2,500), a Redding, Connecticut native, is a rising junior at George Washington University, where she is a reporter for her campus radio station, WRGW District Radio. She has interned at The Redding Pilot, the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. She will be interning in D.C. this summer at the Fairfax County Democratic Committee and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. She received the 2015 Phillip L. Graham Diversity in Journalism Award and the 2016 Sherman Page Allen Excellence in Journalism Award through her journalism department. Sophie aspires to become a political reporter.

CTSPJ President Paul Singley, left, with Amanda Morris’s father, who accepted the Bob Eddy Scholarship award on her behalf while she is traveling in Europe.

Amanda D. Morris (Bob Eddy Award – $1,500), of Farmington, Connecticut, will be a junior at New York University, double majoring in Journalism and Media, Culture and Communications. Her aspiration is to be a humanitarian journalist who covers global issues. She has experience in print, radio and broadcast journalism, including internships at Scholastic News, Prague.tv/Prague Daily Monitor, and a summer internship planned for the Republican-American in Waterbury.

Sandra Gomez-Aceves (Richard Peck Award – $1,000) is a junior at Southern Connecticut State University from Meriden, Connecticut. She is the news director for the campus television station, SCSU TV, and has completed an internship at the Meriden Record-Journal. She will start an internship at the Hartford Courant this summer. She is working toward a career in broadcast journalism, and would like to one day work at Univision.

CTSPJ President Paul Singley, left, with scholarship winner John Napolitano.

John V. Napolitano (James Clark/Pat Child Award – $1,000) ) is a sophomore journalism major at Hofstra University from Hamden, Connecticut. He is a member of the news and sports departments at WRHU 88.7, two-time recipient of the Princeton Review’s number one college radio station. He is a staff writer for the Hofstra Chronicle, the university’s weekly print publication. Napolitano works in the Dean’s Office at the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication. After school, he has aspirations of working in the sports broadcasting field.

The Connecticut SPJ Excellence in Journalism dinner was held on Thursday, May 26, 2016 at Seasons at the Tradition in Wallingford.

The CTSPJ board announces winners of the 2015 Excellence in Journalism Contest, as well as the recipients of the board’s annual scholarship, at the dinner. The board also inducts new members into the Connecticut Journalism Hall of Fame and honors those who have fought for open government during the event.

The dinner is the largest gathering of journalists in Connecticut each year.

Their efforts have had a ripple effect on journalism in the state over the last 50 years.

During that time, the Connecticut chapter of SPJ hosted hundreds of professional development workshops to help journalists in the state network and further their careers. Through the Bob Eddy Scholarship Foundation, the board has distributed more than $140,000 in scholarships to Connecticut students since 1981.

Each year since the early 1970s, the board hosts an Excellence in Journalism contest, which gets between 800 and 1,000 entries each year, in order to recognize the work of journalists across the state. The contest winners are honored at an awards banquet in May, the largest gathering of journalists in the state each year.

The contest raises money for the board operations, including thousands of dollars in donations given to journalism causes. For example, in 2016, the board donated $500 to help host the Connecticut FOI day, donated another $500 toward CCFOI and CFOG, supported the SPJ Legal Defense Fund and Region 1 Fund with $500 each, and helped Connecticut student chapters pay for programming and conference attendance. Additionally, the chapter donated $750 toward the Bob Eddy Scholarship Fund in 2016.

Over the last 50 years, CTSPJ has hosted influential regional conferences, including one this past April at Southern Connecticut State University. This year’s conference attracted 200 journalists from across New England and the tri-state area.

The board created the Connecticut Journalism Hall of Fame to bring credit to those who have made significant contributions to journalism in the state. The actions of these 13 men has had tremendous impact, and will continue to touch the lives of journalists in the state for years to come.

Alan P. Calandro, the former director of the state’s Office of Fiscal Analysis, will receive the Helen M. Loy Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists at its annual dinner May 26 in Wallingford.

During his 25 years at the Office of Fiscal Analysis, he served as its director for the last six years. With his strong belief that government exists to serve the people, Calandro pushed for more public access to state financial information. He helped create Transparency.ct.gov, which provides access to state spending, grants, pensions and other financial data.

Alan P. Calandro

Calandro started working as the senior adviser and special projects coordinator for the University of Connecticut in September 2015.

He previously worked as a caseworker at the Department of Social Services and a business manager in the private sector. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business from UConn and a master’s degree in government from the College of William and Mary.

He has served on various boards and committees and is a Council of State Governments Toll Fellow, a past president of the National Association of Fiscal Officers, former member of the New England Public Policy Center and has presented on fiscal and other topics at various events.

He is married and has two daughters.

The Helen M. Loy award honors those who advance open government through the use of Freedom of Information laws. The late Helen M. Loy was a former chairwoman of the Freedom of Information Commission, and one of the trio of original members appointed by then-Gov. Ella T. Grasso. Loy served as a commissioner from 1975-1985 when she died. Upon her passing, the Connecticut Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists named its annual Freedom of Information award in her honor.

The Connecticut SPJ Excellence in Journalism dinner will be held on Thursday, May 26, 2016 at Seasons at the Tradition in Wallingford.

The CTSPJ board announces winners of the 2016 Excellence in Journalism Contest, as well as the recipients of the board’s annual scholarship, at the dinner. The board also inducts new members into the Connecticut Journalism Hall of Fame and honors those who have fought for open government during the event.

The dinner is the largest gathering of journalists in Connecticut each year.

Bob Eddy was publisher and editor of the Hartford Courant. He worked at the Courant from 1962 to 1974 after many years as a journalist in the Midwest.

Eddy was instrumental in pushing the Courant’s coverage into the suburbs. He was a past president of the New England Society of Newspaper Editors, and an active member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Associated Press Managing Editors and several other journalism groups.

He served in Military Intelligence in World War II. Eddy traveled extensively and wrote from places like Africa, Chile and the Middle East. He won bachelors and masters degrees from the University of Minnesota and later was given that school’s highest award for outstanding journalism standards and for promoting journalism education. He won a Fulbright to lecture on journalism in India and taught at the University of Nebraska and Syracuse.

Eddy was a founder of the Connecticut Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. In that role, he created the SPJ Foundation that awards annual scholarships to promising young journalists to help them to afford a college education. SPJ’s largest scholarship is named for him.

Carter H. White, the late publisher and chairman of the board of The Record-Journal Publishing Co. of Meriden, was inducted into the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame for his part in the struggle for open government and a free press.

White pushed for laws that would allow public access to government records.

His efforts as a state senator in Hartford and as the chairman of the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information helped secure passage of the state Open Records Act in 1957 and Freedom of Information Act in 1975. White fearlessly wielded his editorial pen as publisher of the Record-Journal on behalf of causes he believed in.

In 1972, White wrote: “Right-to-know laws are not mere technicalities for the benefit of a few or of the press, but are designed as the policy of the state legislature to insure in a democracy the availability of all possible governmental information to all of the citizens for the better and fuller participation in their own government.”

White graduated from Meriden High School in 1934, Harvard University in 1938, Harvard Law School in 1941, practiced law as an attorney in Meriden from 1942 to 1952, served as a state senator from Meriden from 1947 to 1948, and advised the city as its corporation counsel from 1947 to 1950.

He became general counsel to the Record-Journal in 1949, publisher in 1967 and chairman in 1974. During that time, he encouraged his reporters to pursue aggressive watchdog journalism.

Shortly after White’s death, John Harvey, former Southington editor of the Record-Journal, wrote this about his publisher in the Record-Journal: “Carter White was something quite rare: an independent publisher who cared more about readers than revenue.”

Barbara Comstock White worked alongside her husband (and fellow hall-of-famer) Carter. She was editor and chairman of the editorial board of the Record-Journal for many years. She started writing features, travel pieces, book and play reviews and editorials and columns part-time for the old Meriden Morning Record in 1946.

She joined the paper full-time in 1956 and became its editor when the Morning Record and the afternoon Journal merged into the Record-Journal in 1978. She and Carter were a true team at home and work. They retired in 1988 but still came to work regularly into the mid-1990s.

Perhaps Barbara’s most recognizable presence over the years was her “Dining Out” column that helped readers learn what to expect from restaurants around the state and New England. Even in most of these columns, the Whites were together, with Barbara combining her own reactions with those of her constant dining companion and husband.

Barbara White served twice as Pulitzer Prize juror, was an active member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the New England Society of the Newspaper Editors and the national conference of Editorial Writers. She was an officer in the Meriden League of Women Voters, the Meriden College Club, AAUW and the city-wide PTA. She graduated magna cum laude in English Literature at Radcliffe College.

This year, CTSPJ celebrates 50 years of working toward improving and protecting journalism in the state.

Over the last 50 years, the Connecticut chapter of SPJ has hosted hundreds of professional development workshops to help journalists in the state network and further their careers. Through the Bob Eddy Scholarship Foundation, the board has distributed more than $140,000 in scholarships to Connecticut students since 1981.

Each year, the board hosts an Excellence in Journalism contest, which gets between 800 and 1,000 entries each year, in order to recognize the work of journalists across the state. The contest winners are honored at an awards banquet in May, the largest gathering of journalists in the state each year.

The contest raises money for the board operations, including thousands of dollars in donations given to journalism causes. For example, in 2016, the board donated $500 to help host the Connecticut FOI day, donated another $500 toward CCFOI and CFOG, supported the SPJ Legal Defense Fund and Region 1 Fund with $500 each, and helped Connecticut student chapters pay for programming and conference attendance. Additionally, the chapter donated $750 toward the Bob Eddy Scholarship Fund in 2016.

Over the last 50 years, CTSPJ has hosted and handful regional conferences, including one this past April at Southern Connecticut State University. This year’s conference attracted 200 journalists from across New England and the tri-state area.

Come celebrate the 50th anniversary at this year’s Excellence in Journalism Awards Dinner on May 26 at Seasons at the Tradition in Wallingford.

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Since 1966, the Connecticut Pro Chapter, Society of Professional Journalists has been dedicated to encouraging journalism.

The Society of Professional Journalists works to improve and protect journalism. SPJ promotes the free flow of information vital to a well-informed citizenry and works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists.

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